SLCC budget before Holyrood confirms levy proposals
The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission presented its final budget to the Scottish Parliament for approval yesterday, reflecting the draft proposals put to the legal profession for consultation earlier this year.
As a result the general levy for solicitors will be cut from £324 this year to £312 for the year from 1 July 2015. There are bigger precentage reductions for practitioner groups that generate few complaints: the rate for advocates will come down from £159 to £150, and for in-house lawyers from £106 to £95.
Solicitors in their first three years of practice will pay £156, those practising outwith Scotland £103, and members of the Association of Commercial Attorneys £100. Conveyancing and executry practitioners will pay equivalent rates to solicitors, also varying with length of qualification and whether they are in-house.
The complaints levy is unchanged, but for the first time the levy has been recognised as a source of income in calculating the budget.
Total projected expenditure falls by 2.5% to £2,704,500, due to a decrease in staff and other costs.
Lorna Jack, chief executive of the Law Society of Scotland, commented: “We’re very pleased to see the continued efforts which the SLCC is making to deal with complaints effectively and to control its operating costs for the forthcoming year, with the result that solicitors will see a reduction in this year’s levy.
“It is very important that we have a robust complaints system and adequately funded complaints handling body. However we have urged the SLCC in previous years to review its charging model, particularly in light of the difficulties firms have faced in recent years and in-house lawyers who have to work to very limited and in many cases reduced budgets.”